yellowcat
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: No-one can outsmart Nanami. Least of all someone she's been sent to kill. Even if he does have an IQ almost as high as hers.
1. 1

**A/N:** Challenges:

The Valentines to Whites Day Advent 2016, day 13 - drabble novel about your OTP  
The Becoming the Tamer King challenge, Training Peak task - drabblechap  
The One Pairing Boot Camp, #002 - triad  
The Diversity Writing Challenge, d6 - a drabble novel with "chapters" under 500 words

* * *

 **yellowcat**

Of course, she's intrigued when she sees his IQ.

The disappointing thing is the orders that come attached with it. A quick, quiet assassination attempt. They know she likes to play with her food before she eats it. They know she's a good assassin when she needs to be but a far better interrogator. They also know something about this target they don't want her teasing out, she thinks, otherwise they wouldn't have specifically said "quiet".

But give a cat a question and they'll claw the answer out. And give a genius a wall and she'll never tell how she gets around it.

Because she's not about to let a guy with that IQ slip away without playing first.


	2. 2

**yellowcat  
** 2.

He's got a mansion. How cliche, she thinks, as she hops nimbly from gate to grass to tree. Poor security as well. Doesn't realise the danger that's about to tap on his windowsill.

She only does it so she can statle him. Catch his eye, so to speak. Hears a growl as well as a startled gasp and that extra tidbit doesn't matter, because she hasn't touched the inside and by the time the dog finds her scent, she'll be far away.

Dogs chase cats, after all, but cats aren't their prey. When it comes to a cat and a mouse, however, the mouse is always eaten.


	3. 3

**3.**

He understands her greeting, it appears. The security hasn't flared up in a way that will alarm the connected, but the improvements are there. Still, she can only hope it's not the extent of his skill because things will be disappointing if it is.

She climbs to the window again. She sees him at his desk. A pity. How easy it would be to shoot the glass, and then shoot him through the glass. He can't have fortified the glass, after all. That's an alarm he doesn't seem to have raised and that might be both wise and his undoing.

After all, she has to kill him either way.


	4. 4

**4.**

She takes the shot. She aims for the stomach because he won't die straight away and that's enough time to prove he's earned those numbers by his name. It cracks and goes through the glass like she expects. It hits another glass inside, and that's more of a surprise.

The image she'd been aiming at was a reflection, was it? She laughs. That is quite interesting. But hardly enough to save him if she wants him dead this night.

She can wait. The deadline's not for a week after all. She will wait, she thinks. Let her teasing presences weigh on his brain before she unleases her true worth.


	5. 5

**5.**

She wonders what he's planned for her tonight. He must expect her to come, at least. She considers skipping the day just to let him lower her guard, but the truth is she can't afford to. She doesn't have that much time.

Instead, she peers through the window a final time. He's there, in his study again. Or the mirrors show him there. A clever little trick, she has to admit, but that won't protect him for very long.

Especially when it's oh so easy to pick the lock on the back door. 'I'm coming, Tohma Norstein' she sings softly to herself. 'What tea party do you have waiting for me?'


	6. 6

**6.**

Ironically, he has laid out two cups of tea. He is also waiting in the study with a dog by his feet. 'Aren't you at all concerned?' she asks. 'After all, I may have come to kill you.'

'I think it's a likely reason,' Tohma agrees, 'but just as likely you won't.'

'Maybe not today.' She shrugs. Her curls barely move despite the motion. 'I will, eventually.'

'You don't think I might outsmart you?' he asks.

'Not particularly,' she replies. 'I'm somewhat of a genius myself.'

He doesn't look surprised. It might be arrogance. It might be something else. He might even have been expecting it.

Either way, it's going to be a fun night.


	7. 7

**7.**

She regards the tea, then takes a sip, nods her approval, and drinks the rest slowly.

'You're awfully complacent,' says the man across from her.

'I'm simply giving credit where it's due,' she replies. 'You're not so foolish to try poisoning a visitor in your home, therefore the drink is likely safe.'

'Odd way of thinking,' he remarks. 'Considering the safer option is to simply not take the drink at all.'

Which is true, but she is sure in a way that negates the need to be safe.

'You might be surprised,' she said quietly, 'how often I'm right about these things.'

'Surprise me, then.' He leans back.

Ooh, a challenge.


	8. 8

**8.**

'Let's play a game of chess.'

They play. Like before, she's not worried he's cheating, or the chess board is hiding something. Too obvious and too delicate to do without suspicion, therefore the trap he's laid if he has will be a subtler one and one easier to put together. Like his little mirror trick. Though he obviously hasn't repeated it.

She can guess at his trap, actually. He's sitting a little too rigidly. Even though he knows, or suspects, her purpose. Even if he's scared out of his mind under his cool facade.

Of course, that's not a problem if she shoots him through the head. Not that she plans to use the gun at all.

And trap number two is given away by the fact that the dog isn't there.


	9. 9

**9.**

Their game stretches for several hours. 'Pity the butler doesn't work at night,' Tohma laments.

Nanami thinks it's a shame as well. They have to keep leaving for drinks and snack and, of course, she's not going to let him go alone and he's not going to leave her alone either. It's a pity for him there's no-one in the house for a different matter, though. He'll be dead by morning before someone comes to rescue him.

Finally, she wins and he admits defeat.

She confesses herself a little disappointed. Not by the match per say, but by the lack of traps waiting for her.


	10. 10

**10.**

She's won the chess match but Tohma's escaped the first of her traps. Which is fine. His observation is keen, regardless of whether it's suspicion or knowledge that drives him. And she expects nothing less.

Of course, she's not so foolish to use something that'll leave a lasting mark upon her gloves, or the pieces on the chessboard or any knob or glass or anything else she's touched. Her lips of course are another matter, but one that can be taken care of before she leaves. Not easily, because Tohma seems to be the guy who'd rather dirty more utensils than clean them, but she knows which are hers and which are his and he's no time to change them. She'll clean them all before she leaves, and even if one assumes there was another person there that night, they'll never know who it is.

In any case, the chess match is over now, and their opening shots as well. It's time for the night's true game.


	11. 11

**11.**

'It's time to find out how you'll be killing me tonight,' said Tohma lightly, sipping a new cup of tea. 'It will be dawn in a few hours, and I'm sure you plan to be gone before then.'

'Because your maid comes to clean up the mess you leave in your night adventures,' she laughs, 'and to prepare a nice breakfast for you too, perhaps?'

'But you know rich geniuses like myself too well.' Of course, it's a mocking tone, but she's not concerned. She's rather wealthy herself, after all. Neither descriptor bears any insult to her, or to him.

But they're also not getting anywhere.

'If time runs out,' she says calmly, 'you lose. Can you afford to waste time?'

'I can,' he replies, equally calmly. 'Because I am sure I'll win.'

She frowns at that. He sounds infuriatingly sure. 'You're dealing with another genius,' she reminds.

'I know.'


	12. 12

**12.**

He'd known before she'd even come? How is that possible, unless there's a mole? The question niggles at her - because it means there's a deeper trap than she's spotted so far, and she needs to spot it before the night is out otherwise she'll be the loser of this game.

She laughs again. This is exciting. She is right to have left this man alive for a little entertainment first. 'Well then,' she says. 'Shall this be like a mystery novel? I try and solve any defence you have against me, and if I unravel them all, it's my victory, isn't it?'

'Indeed it will be,' agrees Tohma, 'because then I'll be dead.'

'Indeed you will.' Which leaves her free to try and puzzle out all his hiding spaces.


	13. 13

**13.**

'You've already used the mirror trick,' she muses, 'and in any case, you can't move things as a reflection. I've already concluded it can't be anything garish, anything that would alarm your staff or whatever service you need to pay for, despite the money at your disposal.'

'Clearly, it would be an insult to my intellect to involve the police,' he agrees, 'and why do anything to tip the spectators of?'

'I expect nothing less.' She leans back in her chair, satisfied on that point. 'Which leaves the more subtle and cheaper methods. You have a garden.'

'Not mine, particularly.'

'Pesticides to change the taste of tea. And, in any case, hardly a case of outsmarting your opponent.'

'Or perhaps I think you simply won't ingest enough before you notice the taste.'


	14. 14

**14.**

And so the rebuttal begins, she thinks. Except it's a useless rebuttal because the point is moot. So she presses on. She discounts a great many possibilities - which would be poor of him to have employed because she's seen them all - but she hasn't found his defence.

And dawn will soon be coming.

'I can think of only two more possibilities,' she sighs. She won't admit defeat. She doesn't have to, because she has a gun if all else fails, and other trinkets like a syringe full of something deadly if they don't. 'Either you have a defence I haven't spotted, or you have nothing.'

'Which is it?' he asks. 'You can't have them both.'


	15. 15

**15.**

No, she can't have them both. 'You have nothing,' she repeats, more firmly. 'Because I won't miss it if it's there.'

'Which will be awfully embarrasing if you have,' he says. 'Though, seeing as you're going to kill me anyway, I reserve the right to not confirm.'

'Really?' she scowls. There's not enough time for her to force an answer out of him. Clever boy...not that it's spared him his life. 'Will you be accepting your death obediently, then?' She climbs out of her chair as she says it, and walks slowly over to him. He stands too. 'Because only fools fight the inevitable?'

'I am far from a fool,' he agrees.


	16. 16

**16.**

She takes out her gun. It's barely past her pocket when he moves almost too fast to see and punches her in the gut.

She screams and falls over the chair. The gun skids away. 'You can't hit me!' she shrieks.

'Why not?' Tohma asks. 'You have no defence.'

She gasps for air and pushes herself out of the chair again. Then she laughs, but it's a different laugh this time. 'A fool's argument,' she says. 'Of course I didn't bother expecting such a thing from a genius. What a pity.'

'How so?' he asks. He picks up her gun. 'I call this check mate.'


	17. 17

**17.**

Unfortunately, it seems like he might be able to shoot her after all. Which means she'll have to wait for another chance.

Her grin fades. 'Tell me,' she spits. 'What fool taught you to act like that?'

'Masaru,' he replies.

Of course, it's Kouki's idiot. She can't abide people like that.

'Well then, do remember to tell this Masaru that Nanami doesn't take to losing well.'

And she drops her flash and vanishes, because she can't risk trying to take the gun back from a man who's socked her so well.


	18. 18

**18.**

It's infuriating, but he's still alive and she'll have to do it the normal way. The quick and quiet way, like she's been ordered to, and she wonders for a fleeting moment if her orders came from someone who'd guessed the outcome of any game between the two of them.

There are a limited number of geniuses in the world, but that man is one of them.

Either way, it doesn't matter too much, for Tohma anyway. He's already marked. So are his friends. She doesn't need to beat him to kill him. In any case, against him, the match counts as a win. It's against Masaru she's lost.

And hopefully Kouki hasn't done away with him yet, so she can rectify that wound to her pride.

After she's taken care of Touma Norstein.


End file.
